


Voltaire in a Shot Glass

by TeaRoses



Category: Trigun
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Vash get drunk and philosophical, in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voltaire in a Shot Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Written for: the_off_chance in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge.
> 
> Thank you to kristin and sabinelagrande for beta help. Any mistakes are my own.

The first bar was crowded. Men were yelling for booze and making obscene propositions to various scantily dressed and slightly frightened-looking women. It was early in the night, but people were already taking on the desperate happiness that comes from having enough to spend on a bottle. Nick dragged Vash to a table by the edge of his sleeve and sat him down.

"You should have ditched the coat," he muttered. "People might recognize you and then we'll spend all night running." Nick was tired of running.

Vash stroked the red fabric. "This... this is me. I hate it when I can't wear it."

Maybe the crowd would actually help, Nick thought to himself, since they could disappear into it. He headed for the bar and came back with two glasses of amber liquor. His friend stared into them with a little smile as if he were already drunk. Vash had that look in his eye like he was daydreaming, the one that always made Nick wonder what exactly he was thinking.

"It looks like good stuff," Vash said.

"All of it looks alike," said Nick. "What matters is how it tastes."

Vash considered for a moment, then took a sip. "It tastes good."

"Actually," said Nick, "I take that back. What matters is that it gets you good and drunk."

"Amen," said Vash, clinking their glasses together.

"You know what I heard?" asked Nick. "When Gunsmoke was first settled, and people were figuring out the plants, booze was one of the first things they started to make. The engineers got on that one even faster than they got on having decent food."

"Well, water was the first thing," said Vash. "People had to line up all day to get water." He put down one gloved finger and traced a ring of condensed moisture on the tabletop.

Nick blinked, not wanting to ask why he was so certain. There were things he knew about Vash that he wasn't supposed to, and they both liked to pretend otherwise.

"But after water, booze. People needed to forget," said Nick.

"I think we forgot enough already. Who remembers Earth anymore? We even forgot how the plants work."

You didn't, thought Nick, but he didn't say it. "You're telling me that's not why you drink?" Vash probably had even more to forget than he did.

Vash tossed back the last swallow in his glass. "Maybe that's part of why," he admitted. "But mostly I drink for fun." He grinned.

"You are a pretty cheerful drunk," admitted Nick.

"Oh, I'm just getting started," Vash murmured into his empty glass.

Nick went back up to the crowded bar, singled for two more of the same to the harried-looking bartender. At this rate he had just as well buy a whole bottle, but the night was young and they might decide to continue their forgetting in a less crowded place.

"So the coat is you?" he asked when he came back with their glasses.

"Someone made it for me. It's red, like flowers back on earth were red."

Nick already knew about the coat, too, but he didn't say it. "I can't even remember the last time I saw a flower."

"Nobody can. But you never know... maybe someday that will change."

After a drunken man fell across the table and spilled Nick's third glass, they walked over to another bar. This one was quieter, but maybe a bit more desperate. It was a dark, serious place and there were no women there, just men staring at the bar and a bartender pouring shots of something clear and potent.

"Do you miss the kids at the orphanage?" Vash asked him after a few minutes.

A few shots had put Nick's mind into more dangerous territory.

"Yeah. I miss them. Kids, they have pure hearts. There was this one girl, just a little thing in pigtails, who asked me just before I left why bad things had to happen to her when she didn't do anything wrong. After her parents died she almost got dragged off by slavers." Nick had shot the slavers, but that was something else he'd keep quiet about. For himself, he was proud of it, but Vash would never understand.

"That's an important question," said Vash. "I used to ask... someone... that all the time."

"Did you ever get an answer?" asked Nick, his voice beginning to be slightly slurred.

"Oh, there's an answer! Rem used to tell me about this guy named Voltaire, and in one of his books someone said everything happens for the best. And when something bad happens to us, it's only because it leads to something good happening later. Like, you were stuck out in the middle of the desert, but it led to us meeting each other."

"Do you really believe that?" Nick asked. It sounded so sappy.

Vash shook his head. "I'm not really sure. It sounds good, but maybe it doesn't explain everything."

"Well, no offense, but your friend had it all wrong about Voltaire anyway. He only said that about everything being for the best to make fun of it, because he thought it was a dumb idea." Nick wasn't even making that up; though he hadn't had a great education, he had gone to the library growing up and once checked out a copy of Voltaire's Candide. Mostly he remembered that Voltaire had a dirty mind, but he remembered the philosophy bit too.

"Really?"

Nick nodded earnestly. "Yeah. Really he thought people should just live and try to mind their own damn business." This was certainly Nick's philosophy of life, or at least it had been until he met Vash.

"But if everyone minds their own business, how do we help make things right?"

"You can't make the whole world right, Vash. That's not how it works."

"That's not what she would have said. My friend."

"Well, I'm not going to argue with someone who isn't here," said Nick.

"You mean her or Voltaire?"

"Both of them, damn it," said Nick, knocking back another shot.

That was when the fight started. It wasn't even unexpected, at least not to Nick. After enough drinking, there was always at least one fight. Two guys in the corner were shoving each other, and the bartender was circling around them and begging them to take it outside. It was hard to tell what they were actually arguing about; apparently someone had stolen a Thomas but it was hard to tell who. Nick felt sorry for the bartender; the chairs in this place looked pretty fragile.

"Hey," said Vash, staggering slightly as he headed for the corner. "Hey, don't fight, guys."

Nick sighed as he followed his friend. "So help me Vash, if you say 'Love and Peace' right now, I am going to break a bottle over your stupid head."

He said it anyway, and the two men stared at him like he was crazy.

"Hey, bartender, bring these two a bottle. On me," said Vash. "They need to make up their differences, right?"

The two men were still staring, but slowly sat down. "It's worth putting up with him for some free drinks," one of them said reluctantly. The bartender hurried over with a bottle and two glasses.

"They're only going to get smashed and pound on each other later," Nick muttered.

"You are such a pessimist," said Vash, barely managing the last word.

"You always have to be the hero," muttered Nick.

"I'm not the hero. Everyone... everyone is their own hero."

"Now you're just too drunk to make sense," said Nick. But they got even drunker, sitting there in that dark bar and drinking nearly tasteless shots. Everything seemed funny after a while, and Nick could hardly say a sentence without Vash giggling, which would send Nick himself off into peals of laughter.

After having way too much, the two staggered out onto the street. Vash sang a drinking song, very off-key, and Nick said, "I'm pretending I'm not with you."

"You are always with me, Nick. Even when you're not."

"Yeah, right. You're going to feel like hell in the morning," Nick informed him.

Vash slapped him on the back, then put an arm around him. "It doesn't matter how I'm going to feel in the morning," he said, leaning heavily on Nick and stepping carefully through the dirty street.

"What matters is how I feel tonight."


End file.
